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Friday, July 3, 2009

"The latent ingredients could be found everywhere." -- Hitler, Pol Pot and Obama.

There is a little-noticed war crimes tribunal going on right now in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. I am working on a section of Absolved with a Cambodian character and found this in my research.

I have also been reading Nuremberg by Joseph Persico when I turn in at night. There is an interesting pont, a parallel if you will, between Hitler and Obama that Persico mentions in Chapter 38 about Wilhelm Frick, the Third Reich's Interior Minister.

Frick's proudest achievement had been to make Adolf Hitler a German. Hitler had renounced his Austrian citizenship in 1925 to pursue his political star in Germany. His German citizenship application was initially turned down because he had been convicted of treason after the 1923 Munich Putsch, his failed attempt to topple the Bavarian government. Frick tried another tack. Anyone named to an official post in Germany was automatically entitled to citizenship. Frick used his influence as a member of the Reichstag to have Hitler appointed constable of a small town called Hildberghausen. Hitler was offended and tore up the appointment. Other gambits failed, but Frick perservered. In February of 1932, he finally managed to have Hitler named a councilor for the state of Braunschweig. Less than a year later, Hitler became Germany's chancellor. (p. 225)

Obama, as I've said before, is no Hitler. Charismatic like Hitler, mesmerizing like Hitler, manipulative like Hitler, narcissistic like Hitler, but not Hitler. Not yet, anyway. Funny about the citizenship question, though.

Pol Pot, the murdering butcher who ran the Khmer Rouge, however was a native born Cambodian, although of Chinese descent.

But Persico's book, which focuses on US Army psychologist Captain Gustav Gilbert's attempt to understand what factors had combined to make the men and women of the Third Reich the monsters that they were, has another interesting observation. After searching for many months, interviewing top war criminals, he finally put together the pieces to the Nazi puzzle when he interviewed Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Hoess.

For Gilbert, it had all fallen into place at last. The puzzle of "why" was complete. . . Gilbert's knowledge of German history was sufficient to tell him that Hitler had not invented anti-Semitism or the cult of obedience . . . Adolf Hitler had merely sown his seed in receptive earth. . . Today, in room 600, Gilbert had seen it all converge in one insignificant human being. . . "The thought of disobeying an order would simply never occur to anybody," Hoess had said. . . "We took it for granted we had to protect Germany from the Jews," Hoess had told Gilbert.

But these two forces, blind obedience and race hatred, while sufficient to account for the assembly line slaughterers, still did not explain the architects and engineers of the Final Solution, even sophisticated men as Ohlendorf and Hoess. The final piece had been provided to Gilbert by the latter, the man who "never had a friend," who preferred the company of horses to that of people. Gilbert began writing: Rudolf Hoess was "outwardly normal, but lacked something essential to normality, the quality of empathy, the capacity to feel with our fellow man." Hoess had described the millions at Auschwitz not as people, but as "shadows passing before me." Combine unthinking obedience, racism and a disconnection from the kinship of mankind, and you could produce an Auschwitz commandant.

His arriving at a solution that satisfied the mind served only to depress Gilbert's spirits. Every society had its authority-ridden personalities. Bigots exist all over. And schizoids, dead to normal feeling walk the streets every day. The latent ingredients could be found everywhere. (pp. 319-320)

Indeed, when you read the article below, you will find that it is not necessary to have a critical mass of Prussian militarist anti-Semites to achieve governmental butchery on a mass scale.

More from me on the other side.

MikeIII

"Whoever opposed the regime, that's what the Khmer Rouge meant."

Khmer Rouge torture survivor saw "hell on earth"

01 Jul 2009 10:33:37 GMT Reuters

By Ek Madra

PHNOM PENH, July 1 (Reuters) - One of the few survivors of the Khmer Rouge's notorious Tuol Sleng prison gave chilling testimony of "hell on earth" when he faced his former torturer at a U.N.-backed war crimes tribunal on Wednesday. Like another survivor who testified at the joint United Nations-Cambodian tribunal, Bou Meng said he was alive only because he was an artist and Duch, the torturer, liked his drawings of Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot.

Meng was accused of spying for the United States in 1977 and was taken along with his wife to the S-21 interrogation centre, once a school and now a museum to the horror of the Khmer Rouge regime.

He was one of only seven people to survive the prison, where more than 14,000 men, women and children died during Pol Pot's 1975-1979 "killing fields" reign of terror. "I saw about 20 men with long hair, looking very sick and emaciated. The cell was like hell on earth," Meng told the court.

The prisoners were kept in chains with empty bullet boxes and plastic bottles to use as toilets.

"I saw a lizard and hoped it would drop on me so I could catch it and eat it," Meng said. "They kept whipping me and asked me when I joined the CIA."

For the first time in three decades, Meng had the chance to question Duch, the first of five Pol Pot cadres indicted by the tribunal.

He never saw his wife again after they entered S-21 and he asked his torturer what had happened to her.

"I expect she was killed by my subordinates," Duch replied.

With no death penalty in Cambodia, Duch, whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav, faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture and homicide.

He has admitted his part in the deaths but maintains he was only following orders.

On Monday another artist Vann Nath said his life was spared only because Duch liked his paintings of Pol Pot.

WAITING TO DIE

Another S-21 survivor, Chum Mey, 79, told the judges on Tuesday his toenails were torn off and that he, too, was held in a dark cell, his legs shackled. He received hardly any food and expected to die at any moment.

"I will never forget my suffering at S-21, as long as I live," he said, his voice breaking, tears rolling down his face.

"When I entered the room, I didn't expect to survive. I just laid on my back, waiting to be killed."

Mey's wife and four children were among the 1.7 million Cambodian's who died under Pol Pot's ultra-Maoist revolution, which ended in the 1979 invasion by Vietnam. He too was accused of being a spy for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

"Who is the CIA? What did the Khmer Rouge mean by CIA," he shouted at his torturer.

Also indicted are Khmer Rouge second-in-command, Nuon Chea, former President Khieu Samphan, and ex-foreign minister Ieng Sary and his wife, all of whom have denied knowledge of the atrocities.

Pol Pot, who was known by the regime as "Brother Number One", died in 1998 near the Thai-Cambodia border.

So you see, it is not necessary for killers to believe in "The Eternal Jew" to achieve massacre. It is only necessary, in the words of the Khmer Rouge butcher Duch, to believe that it is necessary to kill "Whoever opposed the regime."

Food for thought as we plunge into the undisovered country of our future with Barack Hussein Obama, the mesmerizing narcissist without a birth certificate.

7 comments:

One of the interesting, but chilling, facts about sociopaths - like Obong, Hitler, even smaller monsters like Gacy and Bundy - is that they have a keen instinct which enables them to affect whatever expression, tone, body language or mannerism, is needed at a specific moment, to make them appear human. Study Bundy's interviews.

A pure sociopath can manage to choke up with emotion while recounting to an eager interviewer, the likelihood that his poor grandmother may not be long for this world... even hours after giving the order to a subordinate to put the pillow over granny's face as soon as the speaker is safely visible in another location.When one combines the utter lack of morality of the socipath with the solipsistic and narcissistic mental disorders, then one has a man whose murderous capacity is no different than any of the others of that ilk throughout history. It is merely a matter of degree, and time.

Not a question of "wanting" to believe it, but a question of believing it, or not. If one cannot see, and accept, reality as it is, then one will soon will die as a result of that. For most people, they would rather live in comfortable ignorance of the evil that exists around them. Show it to them, and they recoil, and deny. It's why they're referred to as "Eloi".

'Not human' is such a terrible term. They ARE human, and our willingness to 'dehumanize' such a person makes them that much more powerful.

The fact is, each of us has an underlying monster inside itching, gnawing, waiting for a chance to get out. Even the most pious person has the innate ability to let slip forth said underlying demon.. i.e. child molesting preachers.

Being human is the ability to choose to let it slide through unhindered, or fight it and let your conscience be the victor. Choice is what it comes down to.

On the battlefield, that monster might save your life... or it might drown you in shame ever after... but it's still a choice you might have to make.

Good to see you mention the eligibility controversy in these terms "funny about the citizenship question" Because it's *not* aboutthe birth certificate, it's about dual citizenship at birth. One gooddiscussion of this was at the Citizen Well blog about December 7th 2008. "Born a Brit"

"Progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress."

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. -- H.L. Mencken

On the efficacy of passive resistance in the face of the collectivist beast. . .

Had the Japanese got as far as India, Gandhi's theories of "passive resistance" would have floated down the Ganges River with his bayoneted, beheaded carcass. -- Mike Vanderboegh.

In the future . . .

When the histories are written, “National Rifle Association” will be cross-referenced with “Judenrat.” -- Mike Vanderboegh to Sebastian at "Snowflakes in Hell"

"Smash the bloody mirror."

If you find yourself through the looking glass, where the verities of the world you knew and loved no longer apply, there is only one thing to do. Knock the Red Queen on her ass, turn around, and smash the bloody mirror. -- Mike Vanderboegh

From Kurt Hoffman over at Armed and Safe.

"I believe that being despised by the despicable is as good as being admired by the admirable."

From long experience myself, I can only say, "You betcha."

"Only cowards dare cringe."

The fears of man are many. He fears the shadow of death and the closed doors of the future. He is afraid for his friends and for his sons and of the specter of tomorrow. All his life's journey he walks in the lonely corridors of his controlled fears, if he is a man. For only fools will strut, and only cowards dare cringe. -- James Warner Bellah, "Spanish Man's Grave" in Reveille, Curtis Publishing, 1947.

"We fight an enemy that never sleeps."

"As our enemies work bit by bit to deconstruct, we must work bit by bit to REconstruct. Be mindful where we should be. Set goals. We fight an enemy that never sleeps. We must learn to sleep less." -- Mike H. at What McAuliffe Said

"The Fate of Unborn Millions. . ."

"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army-Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; that is all we can expect-We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die." -- George Washington to his troops before the Battle of Long Island.

"We will not go gently . . ."

This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can't be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won't be done. The Founders' Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.

But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.

And when we are gone, the scattered, free survivors hiding in the ruins of our once-great republic will sing of our deeds in forbidden songs, tending the flickering flame of individual liberty until it bursts forth again, as it must, generations later. We will live forever, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, in sacred memory.

-- Mike Vanderboegh, The Lessons of Mumbai:Death Cults, the "Socialism of Imbeciles" and Refusing to Submit, 1 December 2008

"A common language of resistance . . ."

"Colonial rebellions throughout the modern world have been acts of shared political imagination. Unless unhappy people develop the capacity to trust other unhappy people, protest remains a local affair easily silenced by traditional authority. Usually, however, a moment arrives when large numbers of men and women realize for the first time that they enjoy the support of strangers, ordinary people much like themselves who happen to live in distant places and whom under normal circumstances they would never meet. It is an intoxicating discovery. A common language of resistance suddenly opens to those who are most vulnerable to painful retribution the possibility of creating a new community. As the conviction of solidarity grows, parochial issues and aspirations merge imperceptibly with a compelling national agenda which only a short time before may have been the dream of only a few. For many Americans colonists this moment occurred late in the spring of 1774." -- T.H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, Oxford University Press, 2004, p.1.